Wednesday, January 27, 2010

Manly Men who Love to Read...


Guys!!!---guysread.com is a great website for you if you love to read, like to hear about what's current or coming out, would like like to start a book club, and more! It's a hit with some bigger libraries who actually have "guysread" book clubs. The website offers a book of the month selection regularly, and it might be fun to check out their recommendations and see what you think.

There are also blogs and writer interviews so make sure to check it out!


This month's GUYS READ selection is:




Walter Dean Myers


A Vietnam war story . . . from inside the war. Walter Dean Myers, master storyteller, makes this more than just another war book. Realistic, humorous, questioning, moving, historical fiction at its best

Tuesday, January 26, 2010

ULTIMATE TEEN READING LIST: Compiled by teenreads.com

One of our goals each month is to inspire you to read --- and to keep reading. We have found that required reading lists for school --- especially summer reading lists --- are not exactly inspiring. Thus we have created what we think is the Ultimate Teen Reading List --- more than 300 titles that we think are perfect choices for reading and discussing. Our dream is that schools will use this list to help them make their own for summer reading or, even better, suggest that students just read what they want from this list.How did we create our list? We compiled entries from Teenreads.com readers who weighed in with their selections and we also asked our staffers for suggestions. Titles range from young adult books to books that we read on adult lists that we think would be enjoyed by teens.Thanks to all who participated in this project, which spurred a lot of conversation about books. We encourage you to share this list with your teachers and fellow classmates, as well as librarians.
Here are the titles we’ve added most recently: CATCHING FIRE by Suzanne Collins
THE CHOSEN ONE by Carol Lynch Williams
FRONT AND CENTER by Catherine Gilbert Murdock
THE GLASS CASTLE: A Memoir by Jeannette Walls
IF I STAY by Gayle Forman
IMPOSSIBLE by Nancy Werlin
THE LAST LECTURE by Randy Pausch with Jeffrey Zaslow
THE MAZE RUNNER by James Dashner
PURPLE HEART by Patricia McCormick
SKUNK GIRL by Sheba Karim
TWENTY BOY SUMMER by Sarah Ockler

Thursday, January 21, 2010

New Young Adult Christian Books Available...

Here are a few of the newer series that we have avilable in our system---

Diary of a Teenage Girl (there are several series, each with three or four books - Chloe, Caitlin, Kim, and Maya) by Melody Carlson
The Secret Life of Samantha McGregor by Melody Carlson (first book Bad Connection)
Carter House Girls by Melody Carlson (first book Mixed Bags)
Shadowside Trilogy by Robert Elmer (science fiction; first book Trion Rising)
Katie Wheldon series by Robin Jones Gunn (featuring Katie from the Christy Miller and Sierra Jensen books, first book Peculiar Treasures)
A Katie Parker Production by Jenny B. Jones (first book In Between)
Time Thriller Trilogy by Paul McCusker (science fiction/fantasy; first book Ripple Effect)
Payton Skyy series by Stephanie Perry Moore (first book Staying Pure)
Hollywood Nobody series by Lisa Sampson (first book Hollywood Nobody)
Sweet Seasons by Debbie Viguie (first book The Summer of Cotton Candy)

Tuesday, January 19, 2010

Newberry, Caldecott Winners Announced....

Rebecca Stead has won the 2010 Newbery Medal for When You Reach Me (Random/Wendy Lamb). Jerry Pinkney has won the 2010 Randolph Caldecott Medal for The Lion & the Mouse (Little, Brown). And Libba Bray has won the 2010 Michael L. Printz Award for Going Bovine (Delacorte). The awards were announced this morning at the American Library Association’s midwinter conference in Boston.

Four Newbery Honor Books were named: Claudette Colvin: Twice Toward Justice by Phillip Hoose (FSG/Kroupa); The Evolution of Calpurnia Tate by Jacqueline Kelly (Henry Holt); Where the Mountain Meets the Moon by Grace Lin (Little, Brown); and The Mostly True Adventures of Homer P. Figg by Rodman Philbrick (Scholastic/Blue Sky).

There were two Caldecott Honor Books: All the World, illustrated by Marla Frazee, written by Liz Garton Scanlon (S&S/Beach Lane); and Red Sings from Treetops: A Year in Colors, illustrated by Pamela Zagarenski, written by Joyce Sidman (Houghton).

Four Printz Honors were given: Charles and Emma: The Darwins' Leap of Faith by Deborah Heiligman (Henry Holt); The Monstrumologist by Rick Yancey (S&S); Punkzilla by Adam Rapp (Candlewick); and Tales from the Madman Underground: An Historical Romance, 1973 by John Barnes (Viking).

The Margaret A. Edwards Award for lifetime contribution in writing for young adults was given to Jim Murphy, and Lois Lowry was chosen to deliver the May Hill Arbuthnot Honor Lecture.

The Robert F. Sibert Award for the most distinguished informational book went to Almost Astronauts: 13 Women Who Dared to Dream by Tanya Lee Stone (Candlewick). There were three Sibert Honors: The Day-Glo Brothers: The True Story of Bob and Joe Switzer's Bright Ideas and Brand-New Colors by Chris Barton, illustrated by Tony Persiani (Charlesbridge); Moonshot: The Flight of Apollo 11 written and illustrated by Brian Floca (Atheneum/Richard Jackson); and Claudette Colvin: Twice Toward Justice by Phillip Hoose (FSG/Kroupa).

A brand-new award, the YALSA Excellence in Nonfiction Award, went to Charles and Emma: The Darwins' Leap of Faith by Deborah Heiligman (Henry Holt).

The Mildred L. Batchelder Award for best work of translation went to A Faraway Island by Annika Thor, translated from the Swedish by Linda Schenck (Delacorte). There were three Batchelder Honors: Big Wolf and Little Wolf by Nadine Brun-Cosme, illustrated by Olivier Tallec, translated by Claudia Bedrick (Enchanted Lion); Eidi by Bodil Bredsdorff, translated by Kathryn Mahaffy (FSG); and Moribito II: Guardian of the Darkness by Nahoko Uehashi, illustrated by Yuko Shimizu, translated by Cathy Hirano (Scholastic/Arthur A. Levine).

The Theodor Seuss Geisel Award for beginning reader books went to Benny and Penny in the Big No-No! by Geoffrey Hayes (RAW Junior/Toon). There were four Geisel Honor books: I Spy Fly Guy! by Tedd Arnold (Scholastic); Little Mouse Gets Ready by Jeff Smith (RAW Junior/Toon); Mouse and Mole: Fine Feathered Friends by Wong Herbert Yee (Houghton); and Pearl and Wagner: One Funny Day by Kate McMullan, illustrated by R.W. Alley (Dial).

Three Schneider Family Book Awards were announced: Django by Bonnie Christensen (Roaring Brook/Neal Porter) won for best children’s book; Anything by Typical by Nora Raleigh Baskin (S&S) won for best middle grade book; and Marcelo in the Real World by Francisco X. Stork (Scholastic/Arthur A. Levine) won for best teen book.

Walter Dean Myers is the winner of the first-ever Coretta Scott King – Virginia Hamilton Award for Lifetime Achievement.

Vaunda Micheaux Nelson won the Coretta Scott King Author award for Bad News for Outlaws: The Remarkable Life of Bass Reeves, Deputy U.S. Marshal, illustrated by R. Gregory Christie (Lerner/ Carolrhoda), and Charles R. Smith Jr. won the Coretta Scott King Illustrator Award for My People, written by Langston Hughes (Atheneum/Ginee Seo). The John Steptoe Award for New Talent went to Kekla Magoon, author of The Rock and the River (S&S/Aladdin).

One King Author Honor Book was selected: Mare’s War by Tanita S. Davis (Knopf).

One King Illustrator Honor Book was chosen: The Negro Speaks of Rivers, illustrated by E.B. Lewis, written by Langston Hughes (Disney/Jump at the Sun).

Rafael López, author of Book Fiesta!: Celebrate Children’s Day/Book Day; Celebremos El día de los niños/El día de los libros, written by Pat Mora (HarperCollins/Rayo), won the Pura Belpré Illustrator Award. Julia Alvarez, author of Return to Sender (Knopf) won the Pura Belpré Author Award.

There were three Pura Belpré Honor Books for illustration: Diego: Bigger Than Life, illustrated by David Diaz, written by Carmen T. Bernier-Grand (Marshall Cavendish); My Abuelita, illustrated by Yuyi Morales, written by Tony Johnston (Harcourt); and Gracias Thanks, illustrated by John Parra, written by Pat Mora (Lee & Low).

Two Pura Belpré Author Honor books were named: Diego: Bigger Than Life by Carmen T. Bernier-Grand, illustrated by David Diaz (Marshall Cavendish); and Federico García Lorca by Georgina Lázaro, illustrated by Enrique S. Moreiro (Lectorum).

The Odyssey Award for Excellence in Audiobook Production went to Live Oak Media, producer of Louise, the Adventures of a Chicken by Kate DiCamillo, illustrated by Harry Bliss, narrated by Barbara Rosenblat.

There were three Odyssey Honor titles: In the Belly of the Bloodhound: Being an Account of a Particularly Peculiar Adventure in the Life of Jacky Faber by L.A. Meyer, narrated by Katherine Kellgren (Listen & Live); Peace, Locomotion by Jacqueline Woodson, narrated by Dion Graham (Brilliance Audio); and We Are the Ship: The Story of Negro League Baseball by Kadir Nelson, narrated by Dion Graham (Brilliance Audio).

The Andrew Carnegie Medal for excellence in children’s video went to Paul R. Gagne and Mo Willems, producers of Don’t Let the Pigeon Drive the Bus! (Weston Woods). The video is based on Willems’s picture book of the same name, and was narrated by Willems and Jon Scieszka with animation by Pete List.

Thursday, January 14, 2010

A professor ponder the best books.....

What’s your favorite book?
If you’re like me, that’s a tough question. There’s the one that captures the mood you’re in, the one that pulls you out of the mood you’ve been in, the one with those charming turns of phrase, the one with the cunning plot turns, the one with the better-than-you’d-hoped-for ending, and more.

It depends on what one means by favorite. Do I tell you Walden is my favorite because it’s deep and true and visiting the cabin site near Concord, Massachusetts, resonates every time I walk in the woods? Or To the Lighthouse and its visions of writing and artistry? Or do I tell you about the book that I’d want to crawl into bed with when my sinuses seem bent on reenacting Zeus’s birth of Athena, less the whole arrival-of-wisdom bit?

Right now choosing a single book isn’t my problem. I’m preparing to teach an enigmatically named course titled Young Adult Resources, which for me usually involves the novel and the research literature that contextualizes issues experienced by teen protagonists. A couple of colleagues and I talked recently about a guilty moment in selecting readings for such a class: There’s this book, and you love it, and you want someone, anyone, okay, everyone to read it and be swept away by it, too. Sometimes the book turns out to be an ugly duckling of sorts, and it’s hard to convince prospective readers of its attractiveness. In a library, you wonder if you can justify keeping it on the shelf; in a class, you wonder about its presence on the syllabus.

Teacher’s pets
Here, then, is a handful of current and enduring infatuations that my students might soon encounter.
The “It Reminded Me of Friends” title: Brad Barkley and Heather Hepler’s Scrambled Eggs at Midnight (Dutton, 2006). I have dear friends who go annually, like moths to the proverbial flame, to the Renaissance Faire in Shakopee, Minnesota, and they love me even when I won’t go with them. A book set at one such Faire, then, was irresistible. It offers a tender portrayal of teen romance and, as a bonus for unreformed English majors and those yet-to-be, our hero provides one nifty little explanation of T. S. Eliot’s “Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock.”
The “Library Discard That Followed Me Home” title: Elizabeth Marie Pope’s The Sherwood Ring (Houghton Mifflin, 1958). Attracted by its cover, I had to have this book from the Friends’ store. With an orphaned heroine, an estate, a tweed-jacketed historian, quirky ghosts, and a Revolutionary War backstory, what’s not to like? Pope, who taught Milton and Shakespeare, won a Newbery Honor for her other YA title, The Perilous Gard. Yet The Sherwood Ring is far better.
The “Encounter Lost to Time” title: I can’t quite recall when I first curled up with Jean Webster’s Daddy-Long-Legs (Grosett and Dunlap, 1912), but the tween daughter of friends has recently developed a fondness for this epistolary romance, too. A sweet, innocent story is what she’s looking for in a book right now, her mother tells me.
The “I Didn’t Want to Like It—At All” title: Seth Grahame-Smith’s Pride and Prejudice and Zombies (Quirk Books, 2009). Like a good Jane-ite, I looked askance at the effrontery of this interloper until a chance encounter (or some reviews on libraries’ teen sites) led me to turn a few of its pages. Dear Reader, I confess—it made me laugh.
Such an eccentric list omits as much as it shares. It’s decidedly imperfect, omitting my favorite literary bear, Iorek Byrnison; the new and strangely exhilarating Leviathan; the overwhelming voice that reveals How I Live Now; and so many authors whose “electric life, which burns within their words” (per Percy Shelley) charges and challenges the youthful world.




By Jennifer Burek Pierce


What’s your favorite book?
If you’re like me, that’s a tough question. There’s the one that captures the mood you’re in, the one that pulls you out of the mood you’ve been in, the one with those charming turns of phrase, the one with the cunning plot turns, the one with the better-than-you’d-hoped-for ending, and more.

It depends on what one means by favorite. Do I tell you Walden is my favorite because it’s deep and true and visiting the cabin site near Concord, Massachusetts, resonates every time I walk in the woods? Or To the Lighthouse and its visions of writing and artistry? Or do I tell you about the book that I’d want to crawl into bed with when my sinuses seem bent on reenacting Zeus’s birth of Athena, less the whole arrival-of-wisdom bit?

Right now choosing a single book isn’t my problem. I’m preparing to teach an enigmatically named course titled Young Adult Resources, which for me usually involves the novel and the research literature that contextualizes issues experienced by teen protagonists. A couple of colleagues and I talked recently about a guilty moment in selecting readings for such a class: There’s this book, and you love it, and you want someone, anyone, okay, everyone to read it and be swept away by it, too. Sometimes the book turns out to be an ugly duckling of sorts, and it’s hard to convince prospective readers of its attractiveness. In a library, you wonder if you can justify keeping it on the shelf; in a class, you wonder about its presence on the syllabus.

Teacher’s pets
Here, then, is a handful of current and enduring infatuations that my students might soon encounter.
The “It Reminded Me of Friends” title: Brad Barkley and Heather Hepler’s Scrambled Eggs at Midnight (Dutton, 2006). I have dear friends who go annually, like moths to the proverbial flame, to the Renaissance Faire in Shakopee, Minnesota, and they love me even when I won’t go with them. A book set at one such Faire, then, was irresistible. It offers a tender portrayal of teen romance and, as a bonus for unreformed English majors and those yet-to-be, our hero provides one nifty little explanation of T. S. Eliot’s “Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock.”
The “Library Discard That Followed Me Home” title: Elizabeth Marie Pope’s The Sherwood Ring (Houghton Mifflin, 1958). Attracted by its cover, I had to have this book from the Friends’ store. With an orphaned heroine, an estate, a tweed-jacketed historian, quirky ghosts, and a Revolutionary War backstory, what’s not to like? Pope, who taught Milton and Shakespeare, won a Newbery Honor for her other YA title, The Perilous Gard. Yet The Sherwood Ring is far better.
The “Encounter Lost to Time” title: I can’t quite recall when I first curled up with Jean Webster’s Daddy-Long-Legs (Grosett and Dunlap, 1912), but the tween daughter of friends has recently developed a fondness for this epistolary romance, too. A sweet, innocent story is what she’s looking for in a book right now, her mother tells me.
The “I Didn’t Want to Like It—At All” title: Seth Grahame-Smith’s Pride and Prejudice and Zombies (Quirk Books, 2009). Like a good Jane-ite, I looked askance at the effrontery of this interloper until a chance encounter (or some reviews on libraries’ teen sites) led me to turn a few of its pages. Dear Reader, I confess—it made me laugh.
Such an eccentric list omits as much as it shares. It’s decidedly imperfect, omitting my favorite literary bear, Iorek Byrnison; the new and strangely exhilarating Leviathan; the overwhelming voice that reveals How I Live Now; and so many authors whose “electric life, which burns within their words” (per Percy Shelley) charges and challenges the youthful world.

By Jennifer Burek Pierce
How’s a YA literature professor to choose?

What’s your favorite book?
If you’re like me, that’s a tough question. There’s the one that captures the mood you’re in, the one that pulls you out of the mood you’ve been in, the one with those charming turns of phrase, the one with the cunning plot turns, the one with the better-than-you’d-hoped-for ending, and more.

It depends on what one means by favorite. Do I tell you Walden is my favorite because it’s deep and true and visiting the cabin site near Concord, Massachusetts, resonates every time I walk in the woods? Or To the Lighthouse and its visions of writing and artistry? Or do I tell you about the

Wednesday, January 13, 2010

Out with Caufield??? John Green's take....

Oh, Holden. Life Is Still So Hard for You

There's a story in the New York Times today repeating the tired notion that Holden Caulfiled is 'losing his grip on the kids." (And that therefore Catcher in the Rye is somehow less good.)The article implies that there was some recent moment in which Holden seemed fresh and new. I'm sure there was such a time, but it's been a while. I am what teenagers would call "old," and yet when I was a teenager, Holden did not seem to be my historical peer. His slang was different, for one thing. Also, he had phone numbers of prostitutes, which was apparently common in the late 1940s but seemed rather exotic to my teenage self. It is not news that books published 59 years ago read differently than books being published now.The thrust of the NYT story is that kids don't like Holden, that they find him whiny and immature and want him to get a life and take his prozac and engage in the world. This is not news either. In fact, I'd wager that readers have always felt the need to (at least publicly) disavow all association with Holden Caulfield, in precisely the same way that Holden himself refuses to acknowledge the truth of his situation to any of his peers.To sympathize publicly with Holden is to acknowledge that you feel unacknowledged, that you have a difficult time escaping the prison of yourself, that you are unsure of how to be a person, that you are lonely and dishonest and feel reviled. Adults can do this in a way that teenagers cannot.Also, look: Teenagers hate lots of really good books. So what? English classes are not in the business of providing enjoyable reading experiences. English classes are in the business of A. teaching children how to read critically and thoughtfully, and B. teaching them how to be people. Teenagers have always hated the books they read in school. I hated GATSBY! I did! I wrote a paper (no, I won't show it to you) in which I argued that Gatsby was just a dumb book about rich Yankees and their uninteresting rich Yankee problems, and that all that stuff about the billboard and the eyes was a bunch of English-teacher hooey.I was wrong, of course. I was wrong in precisely the same way that students who dislike Catcher are wrong. And I got an D on that paper, which was the appropriate grade, even though of course I was furious at the time. I'd read the book! I'd shared my feelings! What else could a teacher want?!I know that I am, like, annoyingly old-fashioned about this, but it seems to me that a big part of the problem is that we have lately empowered students to think that their reading of a book is inherently good and/or interesting.Too often, we teach kids that all readings are created equal and that there are no bad ideas and etc. But kids are not in school so that they can tell us what they think about Holden Caulfield. They're in school to learn what to think about. And whether or not you like Holden is not, imho, the most important or interesting thing you might be thinking about when reading Catcher.It's not Holden's fault if people read him poorly.UPDATE: I'm not saying that there's only one good reading of a book; I'm saying that not all readings are equally good. More in comments. Also in comments, Scott points out that according to this link, Catcher is the fifth most popular book on college facebook profiles (behind Harry Potter, The Bible, Angels and Demons, and To Kill a Mockingbird). Since the NYT report was based totally on anecdote and that site contains actual, you know, reporting--I think I'll rest easy that Holden is still speaking to "the kids."

Thursday, January 7, 2010

Q & A with Julie Ann Peters



Julie Anne Peters is known for controversial novels, including Luna, about a trangendered teen; and Rage, which examines a lesbian relationship destroyed by dating violence. In Peters' latest book, By the Time You Read This, I'll Be Dead, she tackles another provoking topic: bullycide. Peters spoke with Bookshelf about the book's genesis, how emotionally draining it was to write, and the effect she hopes it has.


Where did the idea for this book come from?


There was this special report on TV about kids who had been so severely bullied in school, from kindergarten on, that they either dropped out or were forced into homeschool. Even if these children had pleaded for help, they’d received little or no adult intervention. Several of the parents on the show talked about their bullied kids who in the end committed suicide. They actually had a term for what had happened; they called it “bullycide.” It was the first time that I’d actually heard that word. The helplessness those kids felt, that inability to deal and cope, really resonated with me.
Around that same time, in October 2006, C. J. Bott, who is a writer and strong advocate against bulling, invited me to join a panel of writers to discuss the issue of bullying in literature at an Assembly of Literature for Adolescents workshop. For my part, I planned to read letters I’ve received from young readers describing the harassment that they’ve been subjected to at school and at home for coming out as gay. And for them, bullying ranged from years of taunting and verbal abuse to physical assault at school, to having their families disown them. Of course self-injury is high among gay youth and suicide is mentioned so often in the letters that I receive.
How did Daelyn's story evolve from there?
I came home from that conference thinking: Are we born with this overarching sense of self-preservation? Are we given free will at birth and how and when do we begin to exercise free will in such destructive ways? If a really hypersensitive child is bullied and teased, with no relief, how long does it take before he or she loses hope? And how can we be so indifferent to or unaware of our children hurting themselves that we just turn a blind eye to it?


Once I started to research suicide it was just extremely easy to retrieve all the graphic details about how to accomplish it. All you have to do is Google “suicide,” and everything is there. There are lots of suicide chat rooms, believe it or not, where people go to talk about it. It’s maybe the only time these kids get to talk to anyone. The Web site for suicide completers in my book was one of my own invention, but it certainly wasn’t difficult to imagine.


Both the suicide theme, and the Web site for completers, are rather controversial. What kind of reaction are you expecting to get from parents and readers?


I’ll probably get the kind of letters from young people that I get now, letters in which they share their own experiences and maybe thank me for writing about controversial subjects. And I know they’ll share their feelings the way they always do. It’s hard to speculate about what I’ll get from adults because I am sure many of them will feel that this is dangerous literature, and some kind of manual for suicide. But literature is such a safe and powerful way to initiate conversation, and bullycide is such an epidemic that we need to be talking about it. I do hope that my book is a springboard for discussion.
I think teachers and adults need to help victims develop more coping skills so they can deal with bullies. And they need to talk to kids about being bullies. I think a lot of times kids don’t realize the effect they have, just by saying something mean. I can almost remember every mean thing any person ever said to me as a child. These things stay with you.


Your main character doesn’t speak, and reveals a great deal of her story through chat board posts Was it hard to tell her story this way?


I never felt she was silent. She has this active inner life. I always felt that she was speaking to herself, to readers and to the people on the board that she could relate to. She certainly was speaking to me. But of course a book like this is so emotionally draining. The hard part was dealing with the helplessness of her parents to effect change. Because by the time Daelyn begins this journey, she’s already at the point of no return, she’s already at the edge. I tried to throw everything I could think of to save her—gave her this potential love interest and maybe some religion, something she could believe in, some hope in life, and maybe a new friend and a new start. Then I just left it up to her to make her decision.


How do you think the open-ended conclusion will resonate with readers?


I think a lot of people like everything all wrapped up. They are not going to like it at all. They want to know what happens and I would rather people decide for themselves.


So there won’t be a part two then?


I never do sequels. I live with these characters for so long that by the time I get done with the book, I feel their story has been told. Daelyn’s story was tough, and I am ready to move on to somebody else. She really gets to you. I hope she had some real dimension. It wasn’t all that she was a victim. She didn’t just give up on herself. I would like to say that she fought for herself, with whatever coping skill she had.


Your book Rage, about a lesbian teen in a violent relationship, was also published recently. Can you talk about how the landscape continues to change for gay characters?


My books are taking on a different kind of tone. I find that my characters are more openly gay or lesbian or transgender because the culture has changed so much. It is a challenge for me as a contemporary realistic writer to keep up with how fast everything is changing. First of all, young people are coming out at an earlier age. I am hearing from kids at 11, 12, 13, and 14. I think this is a healthy thing, although it’s tough to do that with families and with school. Also the national dialogue is contributing to cultural evolution, like the passage of gay marriage laws and hate crime legislation. I think young gay people feel like actual human beings, and that they are part of society and have a role. I think coming-out stories will always be a crucial issue and the foundation of who we are, and we shouldn’t diminish that. But I like to think that my books deal with more than just being gay and coming out, whether they are about relationship abuse, or just falling in love and finding yourself.
What’s next for you?


I have another book coming out in 2011 called She Loves You/She Loves You Not, which is kind of a lesbian love story—that book is much more lighthearted. I like to publish a book a year, because kids write to me and say, “When’s your next book coming out? I can’t wait, I can’t wait.” But it takes me a good 18 months to two years to do a book, so I am usually working on two or three at a time. Although, not when I am writing a rough draft—I can only write one draft at a time. Then I am in the head of those characters, and really living that story.
By the Time You Read This, I'll Be Dead by Julie Anne Peters. Disney-Hyperion, $16.99 ISBN 978-1-4231-1618-9 (Jan.)

Wednesday, January 6, 2010

'I am What I Learn' Student Video Contest

Maybe one of the recent winners of the United States Department of Education’s (DOE) student video contest, “I Am What I Learn.” will turn out to be the next Steven Spielberg. Students ages 13 and up were challenged to create a two-minute video that addresses the question “Why is your education important to fulfilling your dreams?” Two of the three winning entries were submitted by aspiring filmmakers. Rene Harris, 17, from Oxford, Pennsylvania, uses her passion for filmmaking to deal with tough situations in her life, like her father’s physically abusive behavior, while fifteen year old Alex Hughes, Greensboro, North Carolina, has set his sights on becoming a movie director. The third winner, Jordan Lederman, 13, from Sammamish, Washington, wants to become an expert on chickens and her video demonstrated many of the animal husbandry skills she’s acquired on the way. DOE received 600 submissions, which were then winnowed down to 10 finalists by the Office of Communications and Outreach and posted on YouTube. Publicizing the contest on YouTube resulted in 28,000 votes from the general public, and Harris, Hughes and Lederman emerged as the winners, with each receiving a $1,000 prize. Each winner plans to put some of that money away for college tuition or textbooks. To see the winning videos as well as videos from the other seven finalists, visit the contest’s Web site.

Tuesday, January 5, 2010

The Kane Chronicles

Just announced: Rick’s new series The Kane Chronicles, about siblings Carter and Sadie Kane battling Ancient Egyptian gods in the modern world, will launch May 4, 2010 with the first book: The Red Pyramid. Check out Rick Riordan's blog at rickriordan.com for more details!